A nice preview read for tonight's Gerrymandering the Movie presentation at Neuqua Valley (6 pm) can be read here by Matt Hanley of the Aurora Beacon-News.
The new Congressional and State Assembly districts must be re-drawn by May by Democrats (they hold the majority in Springfield) or a non-partisan board will take a shot. Illinois lost one Congressional seat after the last census.
Who knew that in 1981, after the 1980 census, Democrats during divided government got the power of the pen by winning a drawing out of a stove pipe hat? The hat thing must have made the pols pretend that Lincoln would have loved the idea.
Perhaps it would be good for Illinois to have Congressional districts drawn by a neutral third party not involved with electoral politics. Statistically speaking, this would allow for a better chance of districts accurately representing the cross-section of people living in the area (it's closer to a simple random sample than districts drawn by politicians) while, considering the corruption that seems to be a trademark of Illinois politics, it might help to ease the intense partisanship that Illinois faces today.
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